PRIME Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday hailed China’s “extremely important” role in promoting global peace, stability and development and reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to further strengthening its all-weather strategic cooperative partnership with Beijing. Addressing a ceremony marking the 77th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, he said the next phase of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) will focus on industrialization, special economic zones, information technology and artificial intelligence, agriculture, mining and minerals. Chinese Ambassador Jiang Zaidong observed that the remarkable journey of the past 75 years proves that China and Pakistan are friends who have stood by each other in times of joy and sorrow.
It is a matter of satisfaction that despite a variety of challenges being thrown by conspirators of different sorts, the leadership and people of both Pakistan and China are firm on taking their cooperative relationship to new heights. This is because the national interests of the two countries stand to gain as their ties are rooted in history, culture, sincerity, peaceful co-existence, shared prosperity and respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This strategic partnership played a dominant role in deciding the fate of the May 2025 war with India, promoting Pakistan’s defence capability and accelerating the pace of socio-economic development. Propaganda campaigns by the enemies of Sino-Pak friendship notwithstanding, the fact remains the CPEC helped address some of the chronic issues that impeded economic progress. It was mainly because of the infrastructure projects implemented under the framework of the CPEC that connected some of the remote regions to the national mainstream, taking fruits of progress and development to the doorsteps of people of these areas. Resolution of Pakistan’s socio-economic problems is deeply linked to industrialization and agriculture development and the CPEC-2 seeks to forge cooperation to tap this potential. However, there is an impression that the pace of implementation is very slow and needs to be accelerated through better coordination and removal of bottlenecks by relevant ministries and departments.
